Urban Ag News Issue 9 | April 2015 Click here to download the issue. Taking a Lean approach to vertical farming Dan Albert’s first exposure to vertical farming came in 2008 during a design competition for the U.S Green Building Council’s annual conference. “The architecture firm I was working for at the time in Seattle, Wash., sponsored a team of young designers to develop a conceptual architectural design that met the newly developed Living Building Challenge,” Albert said. “The concept of the competition was to design a carbon neutral building that was self-sufficient. The building wouldn’t consume any more energy or water that was found…
Author: urbanagnews
North Yorkshire Applied Research provider Stockbridge Technology Centre (STC) has today confirmed it is to raise the roof on one of its glasshouses to create a new, state of the art research facility to examine the effects of different LED lights on long season crops such as tomato. Already leading the way with its innovative closed multi-tier LED4CROPS facility as a route to closed environment or urban farming, the new glasshouse facility will use both top and inter-light LEDS in combination with high pressure sodium lighting together with specially treated diffuse glass. Graham Ward OBE, STC Chief Executive commented on…
Empathy Garden The project Empathy Garden was born as an installation in the Central Pavilion of the Exhibition Centre of Villa Erba on the Lake of Como in occasion of Orticolario (3-5 October 2014) – one of Italy’s leading events on advanced gardening. An Evolution of the project St Horto (MoMA showcased project and A+Award Architizer 2014 winner), Empathy Garden is a hybrid space: a meeting point, a stage for events and promotion of a culture of sustainability as ecosystemic consciousness, a showcase for local farms products and an immersive experience where atmospheric perceptions, the activity of plants and people are…
Twycross Zoo’s elephants were treated to a futuristic free lunch this week courtesy of an innovative new vertical farming project which plans to help revolutionize food production in the UK, and any part of the world that struggles to grow enough food locally because of a lack of space or hostile environment. Project ‘Urban Grow’ resulted in a crop of 2,000 lettuces being grown from seed to full size in just over half the time it usually takes to grow a lettuce using traditional methods. The company and hydroponics experts behind the project, HydroGarden, based in Coventry, has created a…
Local By Atta is an indoor urban farm located in Moncton, Canada. It grows lettuce, greens and herbs hydroponically and specializes in offering pesticide-free produce year-round. It’s focus is on growing locally for local consumers. Its mission is to become a leader in the emergence of economically-, socially- and environmentally-responsible urban agriculture in Atlantic Canada. There’s something in the name that might interest you. There are two parts. The first, “Local”, I’ve already explained a bit. We’re focused on our local market, economy and community. The second part, “Atta”, is a bit of a longer explanation. It’s a genus of…
“Controlled environment agriculture is the present and future of global food production.” -David Proenza, President of ICCEA 2015 Register now!
Learn about Horticultural LED Grow Lights from the experts. Dr. Roberto Lopez, Dr Cary Mitchell and Students explore LED Grow Lights as both a sole source and supplemental source of growth light for commercially grown crops. Trials included: production of plugs in multilayer chamber using LEDs (sole-source), LED photo-periodic lighting of annuals, end of production LED lighting to enhance foliage color, and tower intra-canopy (interlighting) supplemental LED lighting of tomatoes. Video created and produced by Urban Ag News. If you are interested in having a video created about your organization please contact us directly.
Urban Ag News invites you to participate in an academic research survey on intensive greenhouse and indoor production of food and ornamental crops. Help us in supporting the universities conducting this research! Dear Grower, We are horticultural scientists doing academic research in controlled-environment agriculture, including indoor as well as greenhouse production of ornamental and food specialty crops. In order for us to better address the perceived needs of the commercial protected horticulture industry, we are seeking your opinion regarding important issues that affect the productivity and profitability of your business. The survey is completely anonymous in that we will…
“The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.” – President John F. Kennedy Let’s help support the people who put food on our tables! HarvestFunders.com is a crowdfunding website specifically designed to help provide the agricultural community with nonconventional funding for conventional needs using the power of crowdfunding. How Does It Work? Step 1 – Create a Project On HarvestFunders.com Step 2 – Share Your Project With Your Community Step 3 – Collect Donations Step 4 – Thank Your Contributors Please visit HarvestFunders.com or contact harvestfunders@gmail.com for more information on how…
Radio Panamá has interviewed ICCEA’s David Proenza. “The conept of the vertical greenhouse is to produce on many levels. In this method of production, we work with LED lights,” said David Proenza, who has been using this method of vertical production for three years. In this system, LED lights substitute the sun and collaborate in photosynthesis. “In vertical production, everything is controlled by computers,” added Proenza, who also highlighted that pesticides are not needed.
UW-Stevens Point’s Continuing Education program, Department of Biology and Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility have partnered with Nelson and Pade Inc. to offer a full semester course, Introduction to Aquaponics. It is available as either a two credit or three credit course. All lectures and discussions take place online The three credit option includes a 3-day lab session at Nelson and Pade, Inc’s demonstration greenhouse in Montello, WI. The next offering for this course is the spring, 2015 semester. The lectures run from late February – early May and take place online, each with a self-study session followed by a live chat…
March 3 & 4 Eagle Ridge Conference Center Raymond, Mississippi If you are a grower of greenhouse tomatoes, or if you have interest in growing this crop, mark your calendar now for the 25th Annual Greenhouse Tomato Short Course. Participating in this program will be the best way to learn all about producing greenhouse tomatoes. Read more and register here: http://greenhousetomatosc.com
If you’re needing to practice your Spanish, here is a feature of #ICCEA2015 on the Panama News channel NEXtv.
This past week I received some excellent questions regarding the 2015 International Congress on Controlled Environment Agriculture, which for social media purposes we will also be using #ICCEA2015. First question – What is the purpose for ICCEA2015? This conference was designed to tackle and openly discuss the science as well as the understanding of the current technologies behind growing crops in a controlled environment. As most of us know, there is no shortage of ideas or inspiration needed to find an answer to the often posed question: “How do we feed 9 billion people by 2050?” And, we would probably…